A host device including an industrial device such as a Multi-Function Peripheral (MFP) includes therein or is connected via an external interface to a storage device which stores activation data such as boot loader necessary to activate the host device.
When the host device having the storage device connected thereto is activated, the host device transmits to the storage device a read request command of the activation data such as boot loader stored in the storage device, and the storage device reads the activation data stored therein and transmits the same to the host device, in response to the read request command.
Since an Operating System (OS) for controlling the host device, work data and the like are also usually stored in the storage device, the storage device is required to have a large capacity and to be non-volatile. Therefore, as the related-art storage device, a Hard Disc Drive (HDD) device or a Solid State Drive (SSD) device using a NAND flash memory is used. A read speed of the HDD device or the SSD device is slower than a volatile memory that is to be used for a Random Access Memory (RAM). For this reason, a certain length of time is required to activate the host device.
In particular, as processes of the NAND flash memory evolve, a capacity of one chip increases, so that the number of chips necessary for the SSD device having the same capacity tends to decrease. The reduction in the number of chips necessary for the SSD device may result in a decrease of a parallel processing speed using a plurality of chips (i.e. a simultaneous read processing speed). For this reason, it is required to shorten the activation time of the host device to which the storage device having the activation data stored therein is connected.
In the meantime, there has been suggested a method of transmitting the activation data such as boot loader stored in the storage device to the RAM of the host device at the activation of the host device (for example, refer to JP-A-2007-299242 or JP-A-2003-337746). According to the method disclosed in JP-A-2007-299242 or JP-A-2003-337746, a special configuration is added to an existing storage device, so that the activation data is transmitted to the RAM of the host device. Therefore, it is difficult to apply this method to the existing storage device.